Freezing Republicans

 Well, this is my weekend.

I've been watching "Another Life," a science fiction series on Netflix... or, I thought it was going to be a series.  Last evening I watched the last 4 episodes of season 2 and, well, the series seems to be over.  As usual, humankind once again saves the galaxy from the evil space aliens who turn out to be disembodied flashing lights.  The writing definitely lacked sophistication.  Spoiler alert!  Infecting the aliens with a virus is the key, just like in War of the Worlds, and that more recent ripoff Independence Day.

The weather's supposed to be very nice today, so I'm thinking of doing some yard work: cutting things back and cutting things down.  As long as I'm near a heating pad things work great.  Tomorrow, I may try a ride on the bike and see how that feels.

We're working on setting up another Zoom meeting for my Navy friends.  Every one is retired for the most part, my schedule is flexible, yet one individual seems to think these things need to be held on a Saturday.  I don't understand that.  Wouldn't you be more likely to be home on a weekday?  Interesting.

Tonight's supposed to be movie night, I haven't heard from my movie friend yet, so it may get delayed.

Odd things crossing my mind:  how brittle does a body get if it's frozen.

Oops, sorry, wrong frozen body.

And, of course, today's the day the House votes to send the Bannon issue to the Justice Department.  You can bet, if it is today, most Republicans will vote against it.  Those dumb shits are on some seriously thin ice.  If they think the freeze in Texas was bad last winter, they ain't seen nothing yet.  Vote Blue, then grab your pick and start picking away.

Cool

 Can you believe that Sunday is a holiday?  At least for those of us in America.  We celebrate what the English call the 'Civil War.'  For us, we celebrate our revolution.  There will be fireworks around the country.  In the past, the store would close early so employees might enjoy those fireworks with their families.  Not this year.  I guess greed got in the way of patriotism.  Who will show up to shop Sunday evening?  Mostly foreigners who don't see July 4th as a holiday.  Of course, they also show up on Memorial Day, and Labor Day, in fact they shop on any day they don't recognize as a holiday.

I bought a small, window A/C unit for the bedroom.  Why?  Those 98 (F) degree days.  I'm in an old house, ten foot ceilings, with only one return vent on the 2nd floor.  When the temps are in the upper 80's (F) there is usually no problem, but when the temps hit those high marks I need to turn the thermostat down.  End result, it's 65 (F) downstairs and 88 (F) upstairs.  And those high degree days are not going to disappear soon.

While on the Zoom call with my Navy buddies, one of them asked me to send him a signed copy of one my books.  I kind of agreed.  Later, he said me an email apologizing for guilting me into send him a book.  So I said, no problem, I send it after his wife reviews the book she bought 4 years ago.  Well, I got a message from her on Facebook yesterday morning asking why?  So I explained:  she challenged me to buy her paperback book of poetry (with black & white photos), which I did, and gave her a nice review.  Holy Shit Storm.  I received notifications 3 times  yesterday that she had messaged me in Facebook. I checked this morning and they were gushing with anger, how she was too busy to read, how my friend had turned her into a jockette, how she was a farmer (she had a garden), how I probably couldn't connect with the poetry in her book, and how she had to buy 4 copies of it to give to friends, and on, and on, and on.  My response was simple:  "So bitter.  And what a waste of words.  You could have simply said you weren't giving the book a review.  I guess this means Mike doesn't get a signed copy."  I don't mind pissing her off because she never bought the book.

Finally, the indictments against the Trump Organization were revealed yesterday, one of which was Grand Larceny.  That's a whopper.  Weisellberg's daughter said he'll flip.  I don't doubt it.  He's 73.  If you though Michael Cohen knew were the bodies were buried, this guy still has the receipts from buying the shovels to dig the graves.  And yes, of course it's partially political.  This is something the Republicans have been doing for years.

Momentum

Well, after 4 days, I have a day off.  Many things are planned, mostly household recreational activities.  Doesn't that sound nice?  Household Recreational Activities.  Rather then say that I've a lot of chores needing to be accomplished, I just say I'm going to be spending a few hours with that good, old-fashioned HRA.  As long as I don't provide details, no one is ever going to know, will they?

Every year around this time Strava usually hosts a Trek Challenge: ride at least 100 miles in 30 days.  Not this year.  I suspect Trek bowed out.  This year you can create your own challenge, cycling, running, climbing... you name it.  You can design a group challenge, or an individual one specifically for yourself.  The only goal I have is to ride, stacking up both hours and miles on the bike.

There's also a Zoom call scheduled for this afternoon with some of my Navy buddies.  I'm participating downstairs this time.  On the last call, I had to keep letting the dogs out and then back in multiple times.  If that happens today, I hopefully won't spend as much time at the back door.  Of course, it's supposed to be stanky hot so they might just sleep through the afternoon.

When your town makes it into Joemygod, it isn't always a good thing.  Mechanicsburg was in one of the headlines.  Some stupid MAGA named Sandy Pomeroy Weyer got her ass arrested for participating in the attempted coup on January 6.  She's kind of skaggy looking, don't you think.  Here's the link if you want to read about it.  This is the face of selfishness, and the look of hatred.  She bragged about not being afraid of the police, and then her Facebook posts began disappearing meaning in the real world she's a spineless sack of shit.

In an interview published by the Atlantic, Billy Barr said the claims of voter fraud are nothing but Bullshit.  Those with half a brain, or more, have known this from the beginning.  The only reason grasping The Big Lie is that without it, they are lost.  They see it as a life preserver.  In reality, it's a rock that will drag them down.  Thank you gravity for giving that rock momentum.

Countdown

 Oh My Gosh, it's Friday, also known this week as my Hump Day because my Friday is on Sunday, which is not Easter, that happens next week and is again my Friday.

Speaking of Easter.  I've got 2 mailers from churches advertising their 'services' on Easter Sunday.  One is actually and invite to a Zoom meeting.  Now, ain't that nice.  This is their way of Zooming me in to Jesus.  One of the adverts included a picture of Jesus surrounded by his disciples... and everyone was white with brown hair.  Can you guess which crowd this is aimed at?

Work was slow yesterday.  All those measures I got over the past week, however, are turning into sales.  As of last week, I've racked up over $110 thousand in the past 2 months.  Busy, I have been.  They will hate me for saying this, but I don't mind the slow down.  Honestly, I've been thinking.  Last year this time I cut my hours down to 30 a week which is considered part-time.  Those hours are guaranteed Spring, Summer and Fall, however not over the winter.  Right now, I'm banking much of what I earn.  This means it's time to pull out the calculator and look at the calendar.  And, of course, the change would only knock off about 10 - 12 hours a week.

And what about Dominion suing Fox News?  All they needed was one nut to crack and admit 'no reasonable , and that was Powell admitting 'no reasonable nutjob adult' would believe her lies.  Their little wall of deceit is starting crash down around their ears. 

Oh, and Biden ignored Fox during his first press conference.  It looks like the administration is going to treat Rupert Murdoch's tabloid video channel as just that.

Oh and the Georgia hate machine has passed an unbelievably bill of restrictive voting regulations.  You do know they're hoping this goes to the Supreme Court so the Conservative Majority give white Republicans what they truly want, a path to white dictatorship.

Small is Better

 I received my 2nd Covid shot yesterday.  I asked the nurse, a nice woman with half her head shaved and tattoos down her arms, what I might expect as far as side effects.  "Soreness," she said.  "You may feel a little lethargic.  Maybe a slight headache."  I asked her when these side effects might develop, and she replied "oh, not until tomorrow."  My response:  "good, I'm going to the movies tonight."

And I did.  I went to see "Chaos Walking," a science fiction adventure staring Tom Holland and Daisey Ridley, with special guest stud Joe Jonas.  I enjoyed it thoroughly!  And at 20% occupancy, every show was selling out.  If you're a Tom Holland fan, you do get to most of his butt when he strips to go into a pond to hunt for dinner... you have to see it to believe it.

As for my side effects.  I have a slight headache, but mostly I'm tired.  I called off work, and when I finish this I'm going to go take a little nap with the dogs.

As for the Zoom call yesterday?  There were 17 of us.  One chose to shut down his camera so all we saw was his name.  Unfortunately, he tried to dominate the conversation.  Not a good thing.  We were part of a large division (OI) made up of air and surface radars, and EW (electronic something or other, not warfare).  The EW kept pretty much to themselves.  However, the person trying to dominate the call was from... the EW.  I suggested to a friend that maybe smaller meetings, rather then larger groups might work better.  See, sometimes smaller can be very, very good.

Tasty Greek

 Today is going to be chock full of stuff, time consuming stuff, and hopefully fun (mostly) stuff.  

At 10:15 this morning I'm scheduled to get my 2nd shot.  That means driving 38 miles back to my home town of Lebanon.  I don't mind.  The sooner a majority of us get vaccinated, the safer things will be... and maybe we'll be able to legitimately cut back on wearing masks, unlike Texas and Mississippi which uncontrollably and prematurely ejaculated their mandates.  

Around 1300 this afternoon, I'm supposed to participate in a Zoom meeting with some of Navy Buddies.  It's been over 4 decades since we talked.  There were 2 small reunions on the west coast a few years back which I didn't attend.  None of us who live on the East Coast made the trip.  However, you can Zoom from anywhere in the country.  

And then this evening I'm going to the movies.  Now, won't that be nice.  

Yesterday, after one of my running jogs, I cooked up a Greek dish, chicken, peppers, and other veggies.  The recipe was for 4 servings, wrong.  This is going to be lunch for the next couple of days since I ended up with around 8 servings.  Believe me, it is very, very tasty!

I saw an interesting thing regarding America's worst president ever, that being he was going to continue his faux run for 2024.  Dumb shit MAGA's are sending him cash.  Oh, of course, those donations are going to super PAC he started, but since it's a personal PAC he has access to the funds.  That means he can write himself checks.  Yep, he can pay himself a salary.   For him, this is free cash.  And I do believe it is Tax Exempt since it is not considered earnings.  He's going to milk this faux run for as long as he can.  This man has never demonstrated one whit of integrity in his entire life, why should he start now?

Eternity

 Holy Crap, it's Friday!  I can not believe how fast time is flying by... or maybe I've just had too much caffeine this morning.  Nah, that can't be it.  I'm one of those rare souls who can drink a pot of coffee and then go to bed.  Blame the Navy.  There were times cruising around the Gulf of Tonkin where our shifts were 6 and 6: 6 hours on and 6 hours off.  That's the definition of rotation hell.  Most likely it is nothing more then a side effect of the aging process.  And though it may seem to be flying past at breakneck speeds, this is not to say passing hours are always enjoyable.  Yesterday, for example, was slow and every minute seemed like a freaking eternity.  To be honest, I think those who desperately are seeking to spend an eternity in an afterlife are crazier then hell.  For them, conceiving the length of eternity is beyond their feeble little brains.  For them, the same is true about the universe.  You say universe to them and you can tell simply by looking in their eyes that their personal universe has a perimeter about 217 and a half feet (66.29 M) away from their confused consciousness.   See, I told you it wasn't the coffee.

The size of the universe is too much for some to bear

Next Saturday, some of my Navy friends are having a Zoom meeting and I plan to participate.  I have not seen any of them in 48 years.  This should be interesting.  I'm thinking about recording it and then sending them copies.  Thanks to the Pandemic, Zoom has changed our lives in so many ways.  This is a future no one quite predicted.  

The Cult of Trump began its annual meeting yesterday.  This is a group which has spent what to them feels like an eternity, or at least since Reagan's reelection, an eternity trying to wrest power away from our Democracy.  Formerly known as Republicans, their only goal is to dictate and control.  They have moved so far to the right the idea of a country that is mostly Centrist horrifies the hell out of them.  Creating a holy evangelical empire is their goal.  They have no true idea of how long eternity is, they just know they want to spend it demonizing everything they hate.